The Joy of Feuillard – A Sequential Approach to Teaching Bow Technique (Part 1 – Introduction)
Part 1 – Introduction I started playing the cello seriously in 1971 when I was 22 years old. I had played somewhat earlier, but had very few lessons and was certainly not even considering music as a career. When I went to college I thought I was going to be a doctor, and I majored in anthropology and linguistics. It was only when I finally recognized that I really didn't want to pursue those career goals that I decided to “try” this music thing. When I went to Freiburg, I played for cellist Marçal Cervera, who ultimately became my teacher. He heard me play, and told me that there was “no way” that I could be accepted into the Conservatory. I just didn’t have the technique or background to make [...]
Castelnuovo-Tedesco Cello Concerto Revival
June 8, 2018 marked the Naxos release of a live recording of the first professional performance of Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's 'lost' cello concerto in over 80 years. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's career in his native Italy was cut short by Mussolini's rise, and he spent the latter half of his life in Hollywood, where he scored nearly 200 films, while continuing to compose classical works and teaching students including Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, André Previn, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams (André Previn tells the story of Mario forcing him to orchestrate Mozart's 40th symphony from memory, and then comparing his orchestration to the economy of Mozart's). Gregor Piatigorsky and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, August 1935 (source unknown) Mario relates that Piatigorsky asked “Castelnuovo, a great many cellists play your works as well [...]
A Much Maligned Cellist: The True Story of Felix Salmond and the Elgar Cello Concerto (Part 4)
Blog photos courtesy of the Tully Potter Collection. This blog is a continuation of a multi-part series. Revisit it from the beginning in Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3. The original article first appeared in the Elgar Society Journal. THE EMIGRATION Early in 1922 the Salmonds left England for New York with their two children: Lillian had borrowed money to help pay for their passage and their living expenses while Felix established himself. On 29 March he made a successful recital début at the Aeolian Hall with Frank Bibb at the piano; but it soon became apparent that he would not earn much more as a soloist than he had in England, and that he would have to take a teaching post in order to make ends meet. He [...]
A Much Maligned Cellist: The True Story of Felix Salmond and the Elgar Cello Concerto (Part 3)
Original image provided by the Salmond Family. This blog is a continuation of a multi-part series. Revisit Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. The original article first appeared in the Elgar Society Journal. The next development in the saga was that Fred Gaisberg of HMV wanted to record the Concerto—he had obviously not been put off by the première. As had happened with the Violin Concerto, just four 12-inch 78rpm sides would be available, but the more compact Cello Concerto would not need to be cut quite so drastically—the Scherzo would require only a small excision and the Adagio would be accommodated complete on one side. Sadly Salmond was under contract to Vocalion, so could not be considered. Guilhermina Suggia was approached but wanted too high a fee. The [...]
A Much Maligned Cellist: The True Story of Felix Salmond and the Elgar Cello Concerto (Part 2)
Blog photo courtesy of the Tully Potter Collection. This blog is a continuation of a multi-part series. Revisit Part 1 here. The original article first appeared in the Elgar Society Journal. The fiasco that never was Just how much of a disaster was the premiere? Let us review some of the salient points, starting with the soloist. All those who knew him were agreed that Felix Salmond had a phenomenal memory, so there is every probability that he knew the cello part intimately by the time he arrived at Queen’s Hall. As the son of a singer, he had early imbibed the virtues of a singing line and good breath control. As a virtuoso he was no Feuermann or Piatigorsky but the few discs which document him in fast-moving music [...]
A Much Maligned Cellist: The True Story of Felix Salmond and the Elgar Cello Concerto (Part 1)
Blog photos courtesy of the Tully Potter Collection. This article first appeared in the Elgar Society Journal. Tully Potter tries to lay a myth to rest. Sometimes a myth becomes so firmly entrenched in the public consciousness that the true facts are completely obscured. So it has been with that archetypal English cellist Felix Salmond, whose career is always woefully misrepresented. In his adopted country, the United States, he is remembered for teaching at Juilliard and Curtis and nurturing most of the prominent 1930s and post-war American cellists. In Britain he is indelibly linked with the premiere of Elgar’s E minor Concerto, an event now encrusted with fables. Felix Adrian Norman Salmond was born in London on 19 November 1888, to musical parents: his father Norman was a [...]
LA Story: A Recital of New & Unusual Works for Cello & Piano from Hollywood’s Golden Age
Like many string players I grew up loving the Heifetz recording of the Korngold Violin Concerto, and a general obsession with Heifetz led to an interest in the composers he championed, in particular composers like Korngold, Rózsa, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and others who lived in Los Angeles during the mid-20th century. This inspired a project last April to revive the Castelnuovo-Tedesco cello concerto for its first performance since its 1930s debut performances with Piatigorsky and Toscanini. The recording of our 'reboot' will be released this June on Naxos, but reading and studying about Castelnuovo-Tedesco's relationships with the film studios, Heifetz, Piatigorsky, and the other musicians and composers living in LA gave me a new appreciation for the incredible depth of musical talent that existed in Los Angeles in the middle of the [...]
Introducing: Impossible Etudes and Possible Etudes for Cello!
Etudes that fill a hole in the rep that are actually fun to play. In the world of etudes for cello, there are many great etudes to choose from, whether it is the Duport, Popper, or my personal favorite, the Piatti. The Popper High School Op. 73 is particularly amazing for the range of cello technique it encompasses. In addition, its focus on chromaticism makes it very useful for developing the ear. However, there are some holes in the etude literature that keep popping up. For example, the idea of finger independence while playing double stops is partially found in Piatti Caprices, but true finger independence is elusive for many of my students even after playing these etudes. Polyrhythms are a perfect vehicle for this challenge. Many contemporary works require [...]
Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Forgotten Masterpiece
With over 200 film scores to his name, it's more likely that you've heard Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's music than his name. Castelnuovo-Tedesco was born in Florence in 1895 into a family that had been in Italy for generations, since the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. His career as a composer began with conservatory study in Italy, and by the 1920s he was beginning to garner attention in greater Europe. In 1932 Mario began a lifelong friendship with the guitarist Andres Segovia, who inspired perhaps his most famous work, the Guitar Concerto No.1, and became an important champion of his music. It is largely due to Segovia's influence that Mario wrote over 100 works for the guitar, which today form an important and frequently heard part of that instrument's repertoire. [...]
If it Ain’t Baroque, Don’t Break It? Thoughts About Playing Bach Today….
When I decided to record the Bach cello suites a couple of years ago, I started not by playing but by reading. I read Bach's biography, and then a few Baroque practice books (extremely dense and quite boring) and then I became inspired to change almost everything about the way I played Bach. I eventually came back to doing things the way that had been a part of my DNA after years of playing Bach the "modern" way (but improved), and I'd like to share some of my experiments with you. I never played from a manuscript copy before. The notes are difficult to decipher and so the work is slow and cumbersome. Worth it! Playing from copies of the surviving manuscripts by Anna Magdalena and Kellner taught me so much. There is really no way of [...]
17 (not so) Random Tips for Practicing the Bach Cello Suites
1. First play the bass line. Then add the top voice. 2. Think about voicing. 3. Sequences. 4. Find circles of fifths and enjoy them! 5. Gestures on slurs—the Baroque bow is heavier at the frog and lighter at the tip and sometimes it's beautiful to show the tapering of sound towards the tip. 6. Show where codas happen. 7. Interrupted cadence? 8. Sigh figures. 9. Be aware of the underlying harmony. 10. Echo effects (not too much!). 11. Vary bow pressure—Baroque bow is heavier on the down bow, lighter on the up bow. This can shape a passage of descending eight notes for example. They are not all equal in length and strength. 12. Gigue—breathe more. Feel like you are about to skip before the start. 13. When playing [...]
B A C H S U I T E S
Bowings, beats, bass, bowings and fingerings fit together, bow distribution, bible? Articulation and Anna Magdelena Chords, cadences. common themes within each suite, comfort? Harmony, harmonics? Slurs, scales, sequences, spontaneity Understanding direction of phrases. Up bow or down bow? Intonation Tension from dissonance. tempo choices, trills Extremes? Surprise I was asked to choose a Bach related topic for this live Facebook chat, but I couldn’t think of just one. Instead I thought I would try to cover as many issues as I can think of, using this (gimmicky) chart as a starting point. I will talk about each of the sub-headings, and in doing so hope to answer a lot of questions before they have been asked! I have been playing and teaching the suites all my life. There have been [...]
The Bach Suites Dilemma
For longer than any of us may care to remember, we know that violinists are blessed with a beautiful manuscript of Bach’s 6 solo works they have, carefully written out by the composer; but sometime after he wrote the 6 suites for solo cello (finished by 1721) his manuscript disappeared, probably after his death, and has to date never been found. We are very lucky to have 2 sources, each important in different ways, that have saved these works from oblivion: copies by his wife, Anna Magdalena and by his Leipzig fellow musician, Johann Peter Kellner. While each has its share of problems, we have more than enough from them to be able to perform these great works. But still, no MS from the composer . . . In this [...]
Opening the Beethoven A Major Cello Sonata: Obsessing Over the First Five Bars
The five Beethoven Cello Sonatas are iconic for a number of reasons. First and foremost, they’re some of the first pieces to include the cello in a true duo partnership, something the violin had been enjoying for a long time. While the first two sonatas (Op. 5, 1 and 2) are actually listed as Sonata for Piano and Violoncello, things have changed by the third sonata, Op. 69 in A Major, with the cello now getting top billing. The sonata was written during Beethoven’s middle period and immediately one can sense his expansive creativity at work in full force. The opening is one of the more notorious openings in all of the cello literature. It starts with the famous melody played by the cello alone, like a soliloquy. [...]
HIP, To Be Fair — by Brant Taylor
During my years in high school and college, discussions of what is now referred to as historically informed performance (HIP) could generally be summed up like this: a player belonged either to the “modern/romantic” camp or to the “authentic baroque-y” camp. Highly impressionable students forming fledgling opinions tend to view such things through an unnecessarily black-and-white lens. But something’s also changed in the larger musical community’s awareness and acceptance of what “historically informed” means. While a certain tribalism existed during the early decades of the HIP movement, today we are in a more enlightened and accepting place where, for example, wonderful and highly varied performances of Bach’s Cello Suites are noticed first for their musical merit rather than for whether the player uses gut strings or an endpin. In teaching [...]